Telecommunications circuits entering a building in the form of a twisted pair cable are often terminated to electrical connectors in an enclosure mounted in or adjacent to the building. Such connectors are often subjected to the harsh conditions associated with use in an indoor/outdoor telecommunications environment, e.g. extremes of heat, cold, and moisture. A typical indoor/outdoor telecommunications connector, once installed, defines an interface between sub-circuit sides of the telecommunications circuit, namely, central office and subscriber side sub-circuits. Installation of the connector requires that the respective wires of the central office and subscriber sides be reliably terminated with electrical contacts in the connector. It is then necessary for the operator to test one or both of the sub-circuits. For subscriber side testing purposes a manual switching operation must be performed, i.e. the operator must disconnect the subscriber side circuit from the electrical connector, connect an electrical dummy-load across the subscriber side twisted pair, test the subscriber side circuit, and then remove the dummy-load and reconnect the subscriber side to the electrical connector. Manually switching the subscriber side to a dummy-load and back to the electrical connector is a time consuming operation. Moreover, twisted pair cables of differing nominal sizes often populate a given enclosure, and the installation operation may be further complicated because different sized connectors or adapters must be used to adapt the connection between wires and electrical connectors of differing nominal sizes.
However, prior electrical connectors comprising a switch are not suitable for use in telecommunications circuits. For example, an electrical connector incorporating a switch is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4356361, which discloses a modular electrical switch for use in programming electrical equipment. The electrical connector comprises an electrically insulating housing, and a pair of elongated electrical terminals secured to the base of the housing. The switch comprises an electrically conductive contact bearing disposed within the housing which is moveable between on/off modes. The electrical terminals protrude from the bottom of the housing for being soldered to a printed circuit board, and the housing is adapted for use with dual in-line package electrical components. The known electrical connector is directed toward use with a printed circuit board for programming electronic circuits, and it is not suitable for use in indoor/outdoor telecommunications circuits. This is because the known switch is not adapted for use with twisted pair cable, and the switching configuration thereof is not adapted to disconnect one pair of wires while another pair is connected to a dummy-load. Moreover, terminations are often made in enclosures, which does not leave enough room for time consuming soldering operations Additionally, the overall structure of the known electrical connector does not admit of use in the harsh conditions associated with the indoor/outdoor telecommunications environment